Polymer Clay Podcast And Tv

This week, we review Make it Mine magazine, Creative Caning by D-originals.com, and talk about covering un-bakeables with clay decorations. Come back next week for Polymer Clay TV, for a demo of what we did with our ID badge holders.

Ilysa and Kira are back from the Orlando Clay Fandango retreat 2008- listen to what they have to say about the experience.  

It's our post-conference discussion! Hear about how things went at Synergy, and who we talked with and interviewed. Be sure to come back next week for great video.

Join us as we share with you the experiences we had while at this winter's CHA show, the artists we met, the demos we saw, and the products we encountered.

We share our thoughts with you this week about the CHA show we will be visiting this Saturday-Wednesday. Enjoy!

Listen to Nita tell us about the upcoming clay retreat in Orlando, Florida. Also, learn the difference between an ACEO, and an ATC.  

Yup, the moment you've been waiting for. How do you get the foil to stick to the clay? Watch our video demo and find out.

This week, we had some news- Amaco and Staedler are joining forces to bring you the Spring Bottle of Hope awards at CHA in California, and we will again be covering the show. We will also be going to Synergy soon, and then the Clay Fandango retreat in Orlando. Studio Clay by Sculpey is going to be $2.99 a bar for 2.8 ounces. A pretty good deal (unless you're used to getting your clay at Michael's on sale, unfortunately Michael's isn't carrying it- yet.) We discuss the Jan/Feb Belle Armoire Magazine, graciously given to us by Stampington and Co, and there will be links to two polymer clay artist's blogs for you to learn more about color- come check out polymerclayproductions.com to find out more about that. Finally, our topic for today is covering lumps of scrap clay with slices of cane. A very useful technique. In Polymer Clay Classroom, we show you how to make a bullseye skinner blend cane and then cover clay and shape it to make a pretty fan pull. A great way to decorate!  

This week, we talk about making ornaments for the holidays or just to hang on your walls, we review Donna Kato's book "My Favorite Things in Polymer Clay," and we have a discussion regarding the new Studio by Sculpey clay- because Kira talked to her Regional Trainer, Jane Zhou, about it. Enjoy! Come back next week for the video demo on ornament making.

This week we bring you an interview with Tamara Marble, who created the company Design Canes. She makes very cute small canes, in shapes (no filler around the shape). For example, a fish cane would have the outline of a fish, a bunny will have a bunny outline, etc. She then bakes the canes and cuts them into 1 inch pieces that are sold on her site, www.designcanes.com, and at various retailers. We saw some at the Orlando show being sold by a company called Sparkle n’ Sprinkle (we talked about her millions of colors of glitter and embossing powder, which you’ll see next week in part 2 of our video tour of the show.   Tamara tells us how to use her canes, how she got started, and about her success. With a simple creative idea, this interesting lady has created a business – Think about what you could do!   Enjoy the podcast and be sure to visit Tamara’s site to see the hundreds of canes she has designed. If you live in her area, she is now teaching classes, too. Be sure to Sign up for our Newsletter, and you wi

Judy is the current President of the National Polymer Clay Guild- npcg.org. She is very interesting and a great talker, so we hope you enjoy listening to what she had to say about her art, being the big-cheese, and the Synergy conference (where we will get to meet her!) We also discussed her book and dvd, which she was kind enough to donate to us to watch and read, and she also sent a signed copy of each- which we will be giving away to two lucky newsletter subscribers, so make sure you sign up.

This week, we are talking about inclusions- that means putting something that is not clay, into the clay to change it. You can use lots of things- including baked bits of clay. Spices such as oregano and parsley create great faux stone effects. Make sure if you use anything organic (once alive, such as plant parts) that they are completely dried out before including them in clay. Otherwise the water content could bubble or cause "mooning," especially in translucent, which is the best color of clay to use with inclusions. You can tint translucent clay with a bit of colored clay, and then add inclusions. You can also use the following things to change either the color, or the interior look, of the clay:chopped up crayonsplay sand, or colored craft sandinks- dye or pigmentpowdered pigment, chalk, makeup, spices, metalsacrylic paintglitter, metal leafs and foilsembossing powdercrystals, beads, micro-beads (beads without holes)The way you add inclusions makes a difference too. If you mush and twist it in with your

This week, in preparation for the American holiday of Halloween on the 31st, we decided to explore the making of masks from clay. Remember to make them light and thin if you want to wear them! You can use all clay, or embellishments like scrapbooking brads or metal parts, glitter, metal leaf, Jones Tones foils, crystals and stones, anything you want! Here's a tip- buy a simple plastic mask to use as a template, that way your eye holes will be in the right spot. Enjoy, and come back next week for the video!  

This week we want to encourage you to work with molds. Molds are fun, you can take them of almost anything. You can use polymer clay to make a mold, or silicone rubber, or SuperElasticlay (a sculpey product). I mix superelasticlay with premo, about half and half, to get a flexible mold, and Ilysa prefers a hard mold so she just uses clay. You must bake your polymer clay molds before using them! Be sure to return next week for our video demo. We invite you to listen to our discussion with Lisa Clarke. She operates a Polymer Clay (mostly) bookstore, a blog, and her own radio podcast at her site, www.polkadotcreations.com. She also has an Etsy.com shop for her own polymer clay creations. Lisa is an great person with interesting experiences to share. We hope you enjoy our interview with her as much as we did. Don't forget- the Call for Creativity starts this month. We encourage you to try out translucent clay and effects, using a fall palette of golds, reds, oranges, and turning-greens (think leaves). If you nee

Hi Everyone! We're back in action- we filmed 12 episodes of Polymer Clay TV and Polymer Clay Classroom last weekend and had a blast. We're doing the videos in a new format and we hope you love them. We will be showing basic gold leaf techniques next week, so don't miss that. LISTEN to to podcast right here![display_podcast] We reviewed a book called Clay Techniques with a Pasta Machine, by Maureen Carlson (who we interviewed in the Synergy podcast- be sure to listen to that one.)This book is published by Design Originals- http://www.d-originals.com">www.d-originals.com. We really like it, it is my favorite book to point people to when they want to know why they need a pasta machine. I don't know what I did before I got mine (actually, I remember lots of failed attempts to make nice smooth flat sheets) and we highly recommend it. We will be giving a copy away to a lucky listener this month, so be sure to sign up for our newsletter or comment on the site. We enter everyone who does into our monthly contests. Ne

This week we review Polymer Clay Treasures from Heart in Hand, Lisa Pavelka's demo video. Visit our site, polymerclayproductions.com, for full shownotes and links.

Today we give you interviews with Seth Lee Saverik, Sarah Shriver, Maggie Maggio, and Maureen Carlson. They have each told us a little about themselves, and something about the conference, which is happening next February in Baltimore, Maryland on the East Coast of the US. It promises to be an exciting event, so be sure to check out the class catalog at the NPCG's website. Enjoy. This is a long podcast- an hour and 3 minutes. It may take a few minutes to download.

If you get this on an RSS feed, you will have to visit our site to watch this week's video- Join us as we discuss our experience at the CHA show (Craft & Hobbies Association) in Chicago last weekend. It was great fun. We met a few polymer clay artists as well as representatives of the three polymer clay suppliers- Amaco, Polyform, and Makins. We did video interviews with Lynne, Tommie, and Cat which will air next Friday, and filmed Amaco’s Bottle of Hope awards. You can watch part 1 today, and part 2, as well as the interviews, will air next week. We saw Polyform’s new product, Studio by Sculpey, and got a few samples to share with you. We also talked to Donna Dewberry about the upcoming release of Studio clay in December, as well as the Home Décor projects she has planned. Some of the things displayed in the booth included wall mirrors, vases, candlesticks, votive holders, and garden tables. The clay was used sculpturally to make floral and leaf designs, as well as made to look like faux tiles. It was in

There are two general types of inks that you can use, referred to as Pigment inks, which we talk about today, and Alcohal or Dye inks, which we saved for our next podcast in two weeks. The main difference between the two is that pigment inks stay where you put them, and dye inks "bleed" and tend to dye whatever clay is around them a new color. Pigment inks are created with ground pigments, much like the pigment powder we discussed last week, and a wetting agent or "binder." The simplest binder is water, but the company creating the ink decides what else to put in the ink to create it's many properties- such as how long it stays wet, how flexible it is, how opaque it is, and whether or not you need to heat set it. Most pigment inks need to be heat set on polymer clay so they won't smear. That makes using them with clay very convenient, since you have to bake it anyway! You can use pigment inks on top of uncured clay, you can mix it in to change the color of the clay, you can partially mix it in- which creates

So, you've seen powdered pigments at the craft stores, packaged under names like Perfect Pearls and Pearl-ex, and even online manufacturers of beads and scrapbooking supplies have gotten into the idea of selling pigments. What are they and how do you use them? That�s what we are talking about today, and will be showing next week in our videocast. You must come back next Friday to watch the show, because that�s how you will really understand what we are talking about.   Pigments have been used since art was born. Cave dwellers used natural materials such as plant parts and iron ores to leave marks on cave walls�now kids have the same idea when they use manufactured chalks on the sidewalk. A powdered pigment is by nature, dry. You can try anything with polymer clay- eye makeup, shavings from pastels, fine glitters�but you will really want to try using finely ground powdered pigments made especially for the task. We have our own line, and in the future you will see many more carefully c